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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27869293">every baser instinct</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/to_infynneity/pseuds/to_infynneity'>to_infynneity</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>NCT (Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Blood, Blood Drinking, Blood Magic, Blood and Violence, M/M, Relationship Negotiation, Trust Issues, Vampire Johnny, Vampires</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-04-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-11 00:35:41</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>14,555</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27869293</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/to_infynneity/pseuds/to_infynneity</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A darker world than Mark ever expected greets him when he manages to snag a date with his former TA, a decision which sets him on a path filled with tradition, expectation, danger, blood, covenant and deadly romance. </p><p>Seo Johnny is not at all who—or what—Mark thought he was, but it turns out that neither is Mark. What other revelations await him among the Midnight Court?</p><p>(OR: Bloodbride.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Mark Lee/Suh Youngho | Johnny</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>86</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>NCT Bigbang Round 1</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. brand new animal</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>for the <a href="http://twitter.com/BigBangNct">NCT Big Bang</a>, with <a href="https://twitter.com/speckledsolana/status/1334044844897964034?s=20">art</a> by the absolutely unmatched angel, my dear <a href="http://twitter.com/speckledsolana">speckled anne</a></p><p>this did not start out as my intended big bang submission, but rather grew into it, and grew into something larger and far more intense than anything ive attempted in quite a while. im stretching some muscles here that havent seen use in years, so i thank you all in advance for dealing with some growing pains with me.</p><p>this is the universe you may have seen me on twitter referring to as "bloodbride" or "blbr". these are those characters. this is their story. that said, in the interest of full disclosure, the draft is still being written, with a handful of buffer chapters. i know where i want this to go, but i dont know if they will let me get there, or get there quickly. tags, chapter count, and rating are all subject to change, though i hope to let you all know when that happens and why.</p><p>enough of me. let me tell you a tale...</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Not for the first time in his life, Mark wonders what it is that brought him to this moment.</p><p>Granted, in the past, these thoughts have been prompted by such mundane troubles as which of his early morning seminars does he forego in the interests of nursing his hangover, or what the hell studying the classics will get him outside of an academic arena. Not normally is such an existential concern brought to the front of his mind by catching his boyfriend of exactly four-and-a-half dates with the blood of a stranger dripping in heaping, sticky globules down the attractive curve of his chin.</p><p>Things shouldn’t have wound up like this.</p><p>Or, well...maybe they were always bound to.</p><p>See, Johnny was a good TA. Mark certainly wouldn’t consider himself an expert on the topic, but he’d had enough bad ones to know them from the first drop, and that certainly wasn’t the case here. Johnny would sit there, next to the professor, looking unfairly gorgeous in button-downs of varying pastels and jewel-toned turtlenecks, sometimes with a tie to compliment whatever pair of tight dress pants he wore, sometimes with nothing to hide or disguise how valiantly the measly threads of woven cotten-blend tried to contain the broad expanse of Johnny’s chest. His black leather belts with polished buckles did nothing to stop Mark’s eye from travelling to Johnny’s slim waist, and lower.</p><p>But even beyond the—frankly, inescapable—physical attraction, Mark actually found Johnny’s point of view and method of teaching and engaging with his students to be not only refreshing, but enlightening and riddled with insight that Mark typically wouldn’t have expected from someone of Johnny’s age. And, yes, intelligence like that was certainly sexy, but Mark found himself fantasizing about coffee dates spent debating popular literature takes, alongside every illicit thought about what might be behind that belt buckle and how well Johnny might know how to use it.</p><p>And it didn’t hurt that Mark thought that Johnny might be paying special attention to him too. Nothing untoward, as an assistant to the professor and a Master’s student besides, but small things. A longer, more engaged chat when Mark turned in his essays. Open invitations for critique and support on his final paper. Offers to help with networking if Mark was interested in grad school.</p><p>Mark wasn’t, but that didn’t mean he turned down the invitation to a mixer that Johnny ended up not actually attending, and he actually did get some pretty cool contacts out of the deal, so it wasn’t a total loss.</p><p>Four months and a convocation ceremony later, Mark boldly texted Johnny one night while out with the boys from his international students dorm building — who had swiftly become his roommates and closest friends — two pints in and more confident than he felt.</p><p>“He’s so <em>hot</em>!” Mark had whined, draped in Renjun’s arms, pouting hugely into his third beer and trying not to despair over the lack of response. “It’s not fair. Like, illegal! Who...who let him. Do that.”</p><p>“Be hot?” Jaemin had asked from Yangyang’s lap. Yangyang had very clearly not been paying attention to the situation by leaving hickies on the back of Jaemin’s neck.</p><p>“Yes.” Mark took a sip of his beer, some of it falling down his chin. Lucas had leaned over to mop it up, looking sober and responsible. “It’s...unnatural. Preternaturally hot. Some as yet untapped phenomenon of sexiness.”</p><p>Chenle had cackled like the feral hyena he was, and Renjun had carefully pried the beer out of Mark’s hands.</p><p>Johnny hadn’t responded that night, but it was the ping of Mark’s phone that woke him out of his hangover, cheek pressed to Jaemin’s chest and Yangyang spread overtop of them.</p><p>Seo Johnny (LIT532 TA)</p><p>
  <em>From what I can decipher of this text<br/></em>
  <em>using my considerable analytic<br/></em>
  <em>abilities... you’re wondering if <br/></em>
  <em>I’m interested in you?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>omg<br/></em>
  <em>dude<br/></em>
  <em>pls ignore everything from last night<br/></em>
  <em>i was so wasted</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Oh.<br/></em>
  <em>That’s a shame.<br/></em>
  <em>I was quite looking forward to<br/></em>
  <em>inviting you out for coffee.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>jesus.<br/></em>
  <em>after all that?<br/></em>
  <em>...<br/></em>
  <em>wwwwhen were you thinking?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Perhaps you ought to decide. <br/></em>
  <em>Given your night.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>christ, dude. im so embarrassed,<br/></em>
  <em>5:30 ok?</em>
</p><p>And really, that had been it. Mark had recovered from his hangover with remarkable speed thanks to Jaemin and Yangyang’s ceaseless hype-squad behaviour, and met Johnny for coffee.</p><p>It had been nice. Johnny had sat them near the back, in a secluded booth away from the windows, and they talked and leaned into the empty space between them like two magnets drifting together on an uneven surface. They’d laid groundwork for them seeing each other, understanding that they came from a place of a power imbalance, Johnny being careful to check with Mark about what he wanted. It was nice; clear from that point that Johnny was just as interested in Mark, and in the same way. Mark hated to use such a cliche term, but they clicked.</p><p>They’d spent so much time together that they stopped to get street food as Johnny walked Mark back to his apartment. He’d smiled, a lopsided grin that made his eyes light up in the dark of the night, and said, “I had... a really nice time tonight, Mark, and I’d really, really like for it not to be the last. When can I see you again?”</p><p>Which was how Mark entered their split-level with a burning blush, three roommates climbing over each other to poke fun and ask questions, and plans for dinner later next week. Guanheng tried prying the location of said dinner plans from him with all feigned innocence, but Mark knew better.</p><p>The half-a-date had come from Johnny asking Mark on, to use his exact verbiage which Mark had found insanely endearing, ‘a light stroll in the twilight’. Long summer days were at their peak, leaving the early evening tinged a delicate pink as Johnny held Mark’s hand and led them along the banks of the river. The heat had drawn out of the air with the sun, and they weren’t the only couple to have the idea of a romantic walk after dark, but Mark thought, perhaps a little vainly, that they might be the cutest.</p><p>Or he would have, had Johnny not gone stalk still and squeezed Mark’s hand with a force that might have fractured something if there hadn’t been that last shred of control that Mark could feel Johnny using to prevent it. Mark had glanced up, and watched Johnny’s head turn as if on a swivel, before locking in on two men—intimidatingly and alarmingly attractive, staring directly back at them—two dozen feet away from them.</p><p>“Mark,” Johnny had started, not yet tearing his gaze from the two men in the distance, but clearly working up the nerve to, “I’m sorry to do this. I’m going to have to end our evening here.”</p><p>Johnny’s eyes finally came back to Mark’s own, a streetlamp above them flickering on in the growing dark and shining light on them both. The red-brown of his irises caught Mark’s breath, and all he could manage was a weak, “Yeah. Yeah, that’s cool.”</p><p>A gentle tug to his hand, and Johnny pulled Mark into a stumble toward him, leaning down with the momentum to place an easy kiss on the apple of Mark’s flushed cheek. “I’ll make it up to you. I swear it. You’ll hear from me later tonight. I’m really so sorry.”</p><p>He’d dropped Mark’s hand and walked backward a few steps, before turning and marching toward the spot where the two men were before, but had now vanished into the dark.</p><p>“It’s fine,” Mark had said to the empty air, fingers brushing the top of his cheek.</p><p>And so it had come to here, standing outside the bar where Johnny had asked to meet, that Mark had heard a small commotion come from the side alley, where the streetlights didn’t reach and the sound didn’t carry. Johnny had said that he would be a little late, and that Mark should grab a seat and order whatever he thought Johnny might like, but Mark had found himself waiting. Johnny had promised an explanation for his disappearance on their last date, and Mark needed to see him approach to know whether he would be expecting bullshit, or if Johnny might be the real deal. Enough bastards in Mark’s life had made him wary.</p><p>But not wary enough to keep from investigating the gradually diminishing ruckus that had caught his attention.</p><p>He knew it was none of his business, but maybe an eye witness would disrupt whatever flow of violence might be occurring, or at least convey to the noise-makers that they ought to smarten up if they wanted to avoid trouble. Or maybe he just felt like sticking his nose in someone else’s business, just to know in case it made an interesting tale to tell.</p><p>“... Mark...” Johnny whispers from the back of the alley, the body in his arms limp, the blood on his chin dripping down onto his bare chest. Incongruously, Mark takes the time to look away from Johnny, to find a shirt he recognizes as being Johnny’s style hung over the doorknob of a back entrance to the bar. Johnny had taken his shirt off so that the blood wouldn’t stain it. So that Mark wouldn’t know what he’d done when he showed up. “Mark, please stay calm, I need to—”</p><p>Mark feels his hands fly up in front of him, palms out and facing Johnny, like he can physically push back against this revelation to stop it from consuming him. Like he might be able to keep this wave from crashing over him. Johnny clicks his mouth shut, and Mark registers that it’s the sound of elongated fangs clacking together in his mouth. A shiver runs down Mark’s spine. “Is he...” Mark hears himself asking, listening to how steady his voice is despite the quakes that move through his body, which he’s sure will register on the Richter scale when they finally reach the surface of his skin.</p><p>“No. No, he’s... I try not to... Mark, I’m sorry you found out like this, but—”</p><p>“Will he remember?”</p><p>Johnny shakes his head, and it makes the thick strings of oxidized, congealing blood that connect to his chin and his clavicle wobble from the force. “No, he won’t remember a thing.”</p><p>It takes a moment, with his eyes shut to the scene before him, but Mark holds up a finger. “I wish I could say the same. I’m going to go inside, like you asked, and grab a table. I’m going to order myself a beer, I’m going to drink it, and then I am going to order a second. If I don’t see you in the seat across from me before I finish that second drink, I’m going to assume you’re a danger to me, and to others, and I will be doing everything in my power to never see you again.” He takes a breath, turns around to face away from the alley, and clenches his hands that he’s slipped into the pockets of his shorts into fists. “If you do come in, I want an explanation. Not a story, not an excuse. You explain yourself to me, and I decide what comes next.”</p><p>He doesn’t wait for an answer.</p><p>So it comes as a bit of a surprise that, as he’s most of the way through that second drink, Johnny slinks into the bar to sit across from him. His shirt is on him, no worse for wear and looking for all the world like that’s the only place it’s ever been. His head is bowed, and his fingers fidget against each other on the table’s tacky surface.</p><p>Mark notes how raised his nailbeds are, the angular shape of his fingers that seems... otherworldly. He takes another sip of his drink.</p><p>“I was going to tell you,” Johnny says, picking his head up and meeting Mark’s gaze head on.</p><p>Mark nods, looking at the rings of condensation his drink has left on the coaster upon which it rests. He watches them dry into the flimsy cardboard as he allows the silence to rest, to rise and fill space like dough left to leaven. He carefully does not look at Johnny’s face, but he watches the way Johnny fidgets. Johnny laces and unlaces his fingers, he rubs at his wrist and at his neck, he thumbs at his lip and the edges of his (now completely human-looking) teeth.</p><p>“I’m not sure that makes it better. And I asked for explanations, not excuses.”</p><p>Johnny nods. He flags a server down, orders a whiskey, and drops his head into his hands. “This isn’t going to be fun,” he says, his tone cautionary.</p><p>“No. I gathered that from how not-fun our little encounter was.”</p><p>“I suppose not.”</p><p>He pauses, and Mark refuses to fill the space. He orders another drink off the server that brings Johnny his.</p><p>Johnny takes a deep breath after a gulp of whiskey. “I guess I should clear up that I’m a vampire. That’s step one, right?”</p><p>“I don’t know, is there a guide book for this?” Mark scoffs.</p><p>He expects a quick laugh, but what he gets instead is Johnny’s intense gaze. “Not in so many words, but. There’s protocol. There’s tradition. I’m not generally one for it, but I can’t say that it doesn’t help to have a roadmap before I go running into the wild.”</p><p>It strikes Mark then, in the middle of this bar where regular conversations are happening and keep happening, that Johnny is a pretty serious guy for all he’s spent their last four-and-a-half dates teasing Mark and laughing at him. He meets Johnny’s gaze and sees a suredness there that rocks him, and he has the brief but intense feeling of falling into him. Of being pulled into Johnny’s centre by some force he can’t see or stop, that both is and isn’t entirely separate from Johnny himself. It’s almost unsettling, except for how it feels like opening a door in the wintertime and walking through a rush of heated air escaping into the night. Like coming home after being away too long.</p><p>The server brings him his drink.</p><p>“Do you go running in the wild?” Mark asks.</p><p>“<em>Mark</em>,” Johnny says, making an aborted reach across the table before settling his fingers around his drink. He lifts it, rests it against his lip. “No. Other covens reject human society, ours embraces it.” He drinks.</p><p>“So you’re numerous then. How many of my friends are secretly vampires? How many people have I mistakenly trusted?”</p><p>It’s not satisfying to watch Johnny flinch. Mark kind of wishes he could see him as a monster. “Was trusting me a mistake, Mark?” he asks, softly, and yet it echoes in Mark’s head like a knife dropped on linoleum.</p><p>“That remains to be seen,” Mark hedges carefully, not one to give ground so easily, and Johnny catches his eye shyly, a strange look to see on a man dripping in crimson not a half hour prior. “But seriously. How many of you are hidden in society?”</p><p>A hand through Johnny’s hair, and a sigh as his teeth catch his lips. “More than you know. But less than you should be worried about.”</p><p>“Maybe leave deciding what I should and shouldn’t be worried about to me, okay, big guy?” Mark says, and thrills a little at the flush that spreads on Johnny’s cheeks around his tentative smile.</p><p>And that’s the kicker here, isn’t it? That Mark watched this man—the man who graded his papers and reworked his theses, who held his hand by the Han and kissed his cheek in apology—brutalize a stranger’s neck and speak to him with that viscera still wet in his mouth; yet he still finds him charming and utterly attractive. He knows what Johnny is; he’s well-disguised danger, a camouflage pattern on a slow-moving predator; yet he doesn’t find himself flinching away or looking for an exit.</p><p>“So...” Johnny prompts.</p><p>“What do we do now?”</p><p>Johnny rests his elbows on the table, gazing at his laced fingers as he comes to rest against them. “That, I leave up to you. I was genuine when I wanted to purs—<em>woo</em> you, and I was genuine when I said I wanted to tell you eventually. In that daydream eventuality, I gave you some options: We continue as we have been, and I help you navigate The Midnight Court, or I leave your life and you are free to pretend or forget anything you like about me and what I am.”</p><p>The offer settles in the air between them. And Mark lets the laugh that was building inside of him punch out of his lungs. “Well, that’s not possible,” he says on the tail end of his chuckle.</p><p>Johnny nods, but Mark watches his face shutter closed, his eyes and mouth schooled away from emotion.</p><p>It pushes Mark to reach across the table and grab one of his hands. “There’s no pretending or forgetting. If you leave my life now, all you take with you is yourself. You leave me with the knowledge of a society I cannot distinguish from human, but no way to navigate it to keep myself or my loved ones safe. You see how terrible that is, don’t you?”</p><p>“In this daydream of mine you don’t pick that option, but I know it’s one that humans tend to prefer. Willful ignorance and all that,” Johnny says, and it’s quiet and mostly directed at where their hands are joined. “And those are just some among many options. I’m putting you in charge here, Mark. I want you to blaze the trail, and I will follow you upon it.”</p><p>The consideration Johnny has put into Mark’s reaction tugs gently at Mark’s heartstrings. He wants to believe in it, to trust a monster and fling himself into the dark with it. And that <em>ought</em> to be terrifying; instead, Mark catches himself pressing the tips of his fingers against Johnny’s to spread them out and lace their hands together on the table.</p><p>“I’m not all in just yet,” Mark hedges, rocking their hands back and forth on the insides of their wrists. “I need some time, major, and I’m gonna need information. I’m going to turn you into Encyclopedia Dracula, I need to know what I might be getting into.” He watches, a spark of warmth blooming in his chest, as hope begins to dawn in slow-motion across Johnny’s face, a tender little smile tugging at his lips. “But... Yeah, I like you, Johnny. I like you too much, if how I’m reacting to all this is anything to go by, and that’s too much not to... figure something out. Together.”</p><p>In a careful, inching movement, Johnny draws the back of Mark’s hand up to his lips, maintaining eye contact until he closes his eyes reverently to place a kiss there. It takes a half a beat longer than it should for Johnny to open his eyes again, a puzzled expression smoothing itself out of his features. “Together,” he says, with a little nod. “Thank you, Mark. This is more than I could have hoped for.”</p><p>When Mark gets home he closes the door to his apartment and leans against it, rests the back of his head, and lets out a deep, bone weary sigh. They hadn’t stayed at the bar long after that, Johnny looking pained as he cited some urgent business. “Vampire business?” Mark had asked immediately, and Johnny had shrugged with one shoulder, said “More or less,” and stood.</p><p>There was an awkward moment where Johnny looked like he wanted to reach out, to take some specific action, but aborted each one of his microscopic movements to do so. So instead, Mark stepped into his space, drew him in by the arm, and wrapped his arms around Johnny’s torso. “I don’t want to regret this, Johnny.”</p><p>Johnny had relaxed against him, and returned his embrace. “It’s my hope that you won’t. I don’t plan on giving you a reason to.”</p><p>So now Mark knew a few things: Johnny was a vampire, he had a coven that was fairly large, and he was in charge of it. He didn’t need to feed much or often so long as he was quick and regular about it. He could go out in the sun so long as he was decently concealed from prolonged exposure to its rays, and garlic didn’t do shit to him. “Well,” he’d said, grinning a little for the first time that night, easing into Mark’s careful curiosity, “it doesn’t hurt, that’s for sure. Mostly it just makes your blood taste a little funky.”</p><p>“Funky,” Mark deadpanned.</p><p>Mark had arched an eyebrow.</p><p>Johnny backpedaled. “They don’t like... force-feed their hunt garlic before they feed or anything like that, just. If you happen upon someone who’s eaten garlic recently it’s just a nice surprise.”</p><p>A vampire didn’t kill regularly—or at least, not in Johnny’s coven—unless the situation was dire, or it was inevitable in some manner. Their fangs secrete a neurotoxin at will that induces memory loss of the immediately preceding events to keep their existence secret, “but because we have to like... stretch them out every once in a while when we don’t hunt for a long time, we have some measure of control over it.”</p><p>Against his apartment door, Mark sighs again, and pushes off to make for the kitchen. He’s loose from the beer he’d been drinking while waiting for and subsequently interrogating Johnny, but it still doesn’t feel like enough to settle his mind after it all.</p><p>It’s as he’s pulling the gin down from their liquor cabinet that Yangyang makes his presence known. “Okay, so, we have the gin out, but if you’re home this late at night then you didn’t get lucky tonight. You don’t hit it and quit it.” A yawn interrupts his assessment, before he continues, “Who is Guanheng asking Xuxi to assault?” while wiping sleep from his eyes.</p><p>Mark laughs gently, glad to have a friend who cares as much as Yangyang does. “No one, right now.” He takes a swig straight from the bottle, lets the piney scent suffuse his mouth. “Just... an interesting night.”</p><p>Yangyang nods slowly, and with a shuffle of slippered feet he makes for the fridge, pulling a pint of red bean ice cream from the freezer and gesturing vaguely for Mark to grab him a spoon. “Wanna talk about it?”</p><p>“I’m not sure that I can, really,” Mark admits, passing Yangyang the requested utensil, before grabbing the cap for the bottle in his hand and spinning it on the counter beside him. “It’s not my story to tell.”</p><p>“Mm,” Yangyang hums knowingly around his spoon.</p><p>“What’s Jaemin up to?”</p><p>“Oh, he’s been gone for about an hour or so. He got a call from Jeno, and from the faces he made while he was talking to him, I don’t think things are going too great. He went to go check in.”</p><p>Mark nods, his heart panging for his friend, who cares so much for the people in his life. “I hope he’s not pushing himself too hard.”</p><p>“Don’t worry, I’m taking care of him.” Yangyang smiles softly, spoons out another scoop of ice cream, then replaces the pint in the freezer. “So are we done with Johnny then?”</p><p>“... No. He’s... I really like him, Yangyang. And he’s got a lot going on that could fuck us both up if we’re not careful, but I kind of wanna risk it.”</p><p>Yangyang props his hands on the counter behind him, then heaves himself up to sit on its surface. “You gotta risk it for the biscuit sometimes, my man.”</p><p>A snort fires out of Mark. “Fuck, dude, you’re so wise.”</p><p>Crossing his arms, Yangyang nods sagely. “I know. It’s why you’re friends with me. It’s alright; you can say it.”</p><p>Mark reaches out to smack him, which devolves into a slap-fight that Mark would’ve sworn he outgrew at least four years ago. They hang around in the kitchen until the small hours of the morning, when Jaemin finally checks in with them to say he’s on his way back to the apartment, and once he arrives, they heave him up to his and Yangyang’s room and tuck him into bed carefully.</p><p>“Markie,” Jaemin mumbles, his eyes red and puffy, voice hoarse, “I didn’t even ask how your date went tonight.” It’s whiny and tinged with the threat of tears. He’s delirious.</p><p>“I’ll tell you in the morning, Nana. Go to sleep.”</p><p>Jaemin nods his head where it’s squished into his pillow, and reaches out for Yangyang’s sleeve, tugging forcefully. Yangyang throws his hands up in defeat. “Goodnight, Mark. I’ll make sure he doesn’t get up before eleven.”</p><p>“Night, Yang,” Mark whispers, closing their door and heading for his room. Guanheng’s door is open, his room empty, evidently at Xuxi’s.</p><p>He collapses onto his mattress and feels the weight of the day and the strength of the alcohol hit him at once. He toes off his socks, shucks his jeans, whips his t-shirt off onto his floor, and lifts the covers over himself.</p><p>The skin of his waist where Johnny held him sings with electricity still, which Mark blames heartily on the alcohol as he drifts to sleep. In his dreams, Johnny’s arms are still around him, burning and tight, his chest pressed flush against Mark’s back. His breath ghosts like phantom flames along the skin of his shoulder, searing his neck with the brush of smooth and sharp teeth. Johnny’s lip catches, dry, on Mark’s neck as he leans toward Mark’s ear to whisper.</p><p>“<em>And on the day you are wed,</em>” he breathes, his voice deep and full of danger, “<em>your life will be split between you and your betrothed, and in return you shall receive a split of their life, and by being two in one body you each shall come to be so much more than one. And you, Bride, will know power beyond yourself, and so too shall your intended.</em>”</p><p>It feels important, but the words slip through the cracks in Mark’s mind as he feels Johnny’s hands travel up his stomach, across his chest, to cup his chin. It sounds like something significant, like information Mark ought to hold onto, yet so does Johnny’s fangs finally breaching his skin, sinking into his muscle and allowing his blood to leak from around the seal of his lips.</p><p>Mark sits bolt upright in bed, light streaming in from his window, hard in his boxers.</p><p>His shoulder muscle burns.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. draw you in</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Mark is stalked and welcomed.</p>
<p>Firsts leave a lasting impression.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There is someone following him.</p>
<p>Maybe Mark is just sensitive now that he knows that a secret society of dangerous, predatory beings lives under his—and everyone else’s—nose in broad daylight, but Mark feels pretty confident that he’s being followed.</p>
<p>Mark had woken up the day after his date with Johnny and things had been incongruously normal. He’d felt like he certainly ought to have some indicator of his life that things had changed irrevocably, that his world had been tilted on an axis and that everything he once thought solid and immoveable would slowly shift inches to the left so that he would be bumping his toes into every edge and corner in his life. And maybe it’s this hypervigilance that has him taking note of and paying attention to every fine detail, like the world’s most deadly literary analysis.</p>
<p>It’s also not every day that you see someone with blush pink hair wandering around your stomping ground, nor someone with shock white hair and an undercut. And it’s certainly a rare occurrence to see such things more than a few days in a row.</p>
<p>Normally, it would be Mark’s inclination to assume these new figures in the periphery of his daily tasks and wanderings to be nothing more ominous than new transfers, or students whom he simply paid no mind to without the distracting benefit of irregular hair and stunning good looks. Considering Mark’s part-time employment by the university as a research assistant for graduate students, he’s seen more than a few interesting individuals on campus. Theoretically, the only thing that has changed recently is Johnny’s revelation, and considering that Mark had thus made it to the ripe old age of twenty-three without significant incident—and only just now being made aware of the dangers he’d been unwittingly avoiding—it seems ridiculous to assume that Mark’s world would now revolve around Johnny and his secret.</p>
<p>Right?</p>
<p>Now, however, sitting in a small cafe drinking a mocha, people-watching from the window, Mark feels his doubts melt. After a handful more carefully watchful days, Mark can pick his pink-haired shadow out of a crowd just by the cut of their jaw. They’re across the street, by all rights indistinguishable from any of the other individuals that mill about in the crowds of a nice spring day, leaning against a lamppost with an iced coffee in their hands. But their eyes...there’s a hungry gleam in them that catches the light of the sun from underneath the brim of their ballcap, and it tugs deep at Mark’s core.</p>
<p>Seo Johnny 🩸</p>
<p>
  <em>hey</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>uh</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>what’re you up to?</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>I can be up to just about anything <br/></em>
  <em>you want.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>woah, haha</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>dude</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>But I feel like maybe you’re thinking<br/></em>
  <em>of something specific.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>haha</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>you got me</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>i was just, like... wondering. if maybe<br/></em>
  <em>you could meet me downtown?</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Is there something the matter?</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>it’s like...</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>probably nothing?</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>but i’m also a little spooked if i’m<br/></em>
  <em>being honest</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>I see.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Tell me where you are, and give me<br/></em>
  <em>fifteen minutes.</em>
</p>
<p>In all, Johnny takes ten. But the entire time has Mark bouncing his leg anxiously, ignoring his mocha, and watching his unwanted friend surreptitiously from around his phone.</p>
<p>He doesn’t relax until he sees Johnny’s tall, sturdy frame cross by the window, and in the space where his attention is pulled, Mark realizes that his shadow has disappeared.</p>
<p>“Hey,” greets Johnny after he enters the cafe, little preamble as he sits down across from him and visibly assesses Mark. It sends a little zing of heat up from the bottom of his spine, to have Johnny’s eyes on him so attentively, but Mark cuts the thought off at the root. “Are you alright?” Johnny asks, even after visually confirming no physical harm to Mark.</p>
<p>Mark’s hand climbs up to rub at the back of his neck as he looks back to his follower’s favoured lamppost, deserted. “Yeah, sorry if I like, freaked you out or anything. I just...I think I might be a little bit in my head, about...you know, everything.”</p>
<p>As Mark hedges the conversation around nervous laughter, Johnny relaxes into the seat. “I can imagine.” He draws his gaze away to take in the cafe’s menu, and Mark feels the loss of Johnny’s eyes like a physical weight from his body, briefly mourns it. “You’ve gone radio silent on me otherwise; I feared you might have...” He shakes his head, running a hand through his hair. “Nevermind my fears, they’re unimportant here. Tell me what’s wrong, Mark.”</p>
<p>“I don’t know, it...feels kinda stupid.”</p>
<p>Johnny looks away from the menu sidelong, and places his hand palm up on the table, casually and just near enough to Mark to be an invitation, but still far enough that there’s no pressure. Mark aches to take it, but he stops himself. It won’t do to seem overeager. “Whatever it is, it’s not stupid. Not coming from you.”</p>
<p>The praise rattles through Mark’s bones, a shiver that echoes itself in the gooseflesh that rises on his arms. “I thought I saw someone following me,” he says carefully, feeling the panic he’s tamped down on rising. “I’ve seen them outside my apartment and trailing me downtown, and I couldn’t tell if I was just seeing things—like how you see faces in the popcorn ceilings of houses built in the nineties? O-or if someone like you but not, you know, yours, was maybe, like, following me to get to you or something? And I...I don’t know. I just.” Mark feels his stubborn need to punish Johnny for who he is subside. He reaches out to skim the tips of his fingers along the surface of Johnny’s palm; not holding his hand, but still taking comfort in physical touch. “I felt like I needed you. For like...support. And whatever.”</p>
<p>He watches his finger trace nonsense patterns in Johnny’s skin, feeling like something is pulling him from inside to meet everything inside Johnny, ignoring the blossoming look on Johnny’s face and what it might mean. “I appreciate you reaching out to me. I know...I know that this is weird, and I don’t expect for us to have a roadmap for what...<em>we </em>might look like, but.”</p>
<p>Johnny’s other hand reaches out and tips Mark’s head up by his chin. “Thank you for thinking of me when you sought safety.”</p>
<p>Mark swallows. “It just...felt like the right option. Telling you.” He can’t stand looking at Johnny for too long, not with that cautiously reigned-in hope brimming in his eyes that Mark is slowly realizing are a deep, dark, brown-red, not amber-brown as he’d assumed. He cuts his gaze out the window beside them, and catches sight of that bubblegum pink hair loitering again just outside his vision, but this time on the same side of the street as the cafe, just outside the doors, now paired with that equally familiar head of dyed, shock-white hair with a buzzed undercut. Even now he can’t get a good look at their faces, but the fact that they are now so near when over the past week or so they have not dared end up this close has Mark’s heart racing beneath his ribs.</p>
<p>“Oh, my god. Oh my god!” His hand finds Johnny’s forearm easily. “There! There they are!” Mark whispers with urgency, clutching Johnny tightly. “They left, but they’re back and—”</p>
<p>A sound rumbles in Johnny’s chest as he turns to follow Mark’s gaze, something close to a growl but just veering left of it, unsettling and odd, setting Mark’s hair to stand on end. Yet just as quickly as it started, Johnny quiets. He relaxes, like a cat unwinding from a pounce, and pats Mark’s hand on his arm. It’s almost frustrating how reassuring even that simple gesture is for him. “Well, it seems I must apologize again. I really hope not to make this a habit.”</p>
<p>The confession has Mark pulling away from Johnny, sliding his chair back and drawing his hand away from Johnny’s arm. But Johnny turns with a brilliant—if embarrassed—grin drawn on his lips, and the beauty of it freezes Mark like a deer in headlights. Johnny reaches for Mark’s hand again, and laces their fingers together with a boldness he’d lost since their last disastrous date. “Let me introduce you, Markie,” he says, his eyes soft and full of some gentle apprehension, like opening the curtain on a precious painting, or allowing a stranger into your bedroom. It’s Johnny’s expression that has Mark trawling along behind him, a fishing lure behind a boat on a still lake, toward the doors where the two men that have lingered in the periphery of Mark’s vision for a week or more freeze up at Johnny’s approach.</p>
<p>The doors open to a warm spring breeze blowing past them, and Mark watches as his frequent shadows stand at attention and cut their eyes back and forth between Mark, Johnny, and their clasped hands. “Boys,” Johnny greets, herding all of them away from the front doors of the cafe and toward the unoccupied outdoor seating, though no one makes a move to sit. “This is Mark, whom you’ve been giving small heart attacks with your overbearing watchfulness,” Johnny chides, earning a look of guilty remorse from the bubblegum boy, and one of defiant exasperation from the undercut. Johnny turns back to Mark with a brilliant smile and something that looks like him bracing for embarrassment. “Mark, I want you to meet my brothers.”</p>
<p>“Not by blood as in heredity,” says bubblegum, still looking a tad guilty, but his smile starting to bloom into something that takes root in Mark’s chest carelessly. “But by blood, as in... well, you know.” He holds out a hand, long slender fingers and neatly trimmed nails, and his eyes maybe twinkle with delight. “My name is Lee Taeyong.” When Mark’s hand slips into his, Taeyong’s is warm, and squeezes once, gently. “I’m sorry if I frightened you.”</p>
<p>Mark shakes his head instinctually, ready to offer up a polite denial, when Undercut inhales deeply, and then again meaningfully. “Yongie,” he breathes, the tension in his frame melting off him like a sheen of water from a delicate ice sculpture, “Johnjohn wasn’t kidding.”</p>
<p>“Yuta!” Taeyong hisses as Johnny presses a hand to his face to cover his eyes, smacking Yuta’s arm and lifting a hand to press the back of his head into a small bow. Still, Yuta’s eyes do not leave Mark in any form of deference. “I’m sorry for him; this is Nakamoto Yuta, and I’m sure he’s also sorry for his rudeness.”</p>
<p>“You smell nice,” Yuta says instead of anything else, his grin crooked and sly, and somehow so much like Johnny’s.</p>
<p>“Uh,” Mark tries, coughing when his throat catches on the weird tension going on around him, “thanks?” He looks up to Johnny for guidance, but finds Johnny looking meaningfully at Taeyong, and then both of them cutting their eyes to Yuta. Strangely, Mark almost feels like he could hear the conversation going on between them, even if he doesn’t think he would understand it.</p>
<p>Gently, he gives Johnny’s hand in his a tug, and he startles out of whatever unspoken discussion is happening with a glance down at Mark, his face smoothing out into a pleased grin. “I’m sorry they caused you worry, Mark. They’ve been with me a long time, and this isn’t the first time they’ve done this.”</p>
<p>It feels like meeting the parents. Mark supposes that, for immortal beings of some indiscernible age, perhaps this is as close as he will come to it. “It’s alright,” Mark acquiesces, tucking himself a little closer to Johnny’s side, letting himself flush a bit at the tender kiss Johnny lays on the crown of his head. “I suppose it just means that they care about you a lot, but I could’ve done without the, you know...kind of crippling paranoia of it all.”</p>
<p>Taeyong grimaces and rubs at the back of his neck. Yuta, for his part, shrugs and slouches away, not looking at all particularly bothered. “It’s...hard for some of us, sometimes,” Johnny says, rubbing his thumb along the back of Mark’s hand. “Spend a handful of decades out of the eye of society, and you’d be surprised how quickly you manage to forget all its little rules.”</p>
<p>Suddenly, Yuta looks interested again. “Can we bring him back to the den?” he asks, hands still in his pockets as he leans back into Mark’s space, bent over such that he has to look significantly upward to meet Mark’s gaze. It’s a little deranged, and Mark is forced to recall exactly what it is that he’s meeting, what he’s dating. What he means when he talks about ‘the den’.</p>
<p>But despite all that, and in light of how Mark has somewhat recklessly decided to throw all good sense to the wind and accept that his boyfriend is a <em>vampire</em>, Mark actually...kind of wants to see Johnny’s place. They’ve taken it so slow that Johnny hasn’t even stepped foot into the neighbourhood where Mark’s college apartment is, and Mark wants to take a leap—as if he hasn’t already taken several with Johnny.</p>
<p>“Absolutely not,” Johnny says sternly, and Mark startles to look up and catch a flash of deeper red in Johnny’s eyes as Yuta cows and looks entirely chastised. Mark moves to step away, feeling like maybe he’s failed some sort of test here—maybe he’s given the wrong impression to Taeyong, or there’s something else he’s missing—but Johnny holds tight to their clasped hands, drawing Mark back in. “At least, not today. You especially should know that now’s not a good time for us, Yuu.”</p>
<p>The pet name seems to mollify Yuta, but the implication of Johnny’s words has Mark all the more curious. “Well, I mean. When it’s a better time for you, I’d...kinda like to come around, if you’ll let me?” Johnny turns to meet his gaze, and if Mark can feel himself turning on the wide, round, pleading eyes that he’s used on lovers-long-past to get what he wants, well. No one needs to know.</p>
<p>“God’s sake, Mark,” Johnny curses under his breath, leaning in to steal a kiss off Mark’s forehead, a longer press of his lips using their joined hands to tug him all the closer. “I promise it’s not that I never intend to have you over, but I mean it when I say now’s not great. We’re—”</p>
<p>“There’s a particularly tricky transition going on at the moment,” Taeyong interrupts graciously, eyes trained on Johnny before cutting to soften when they land on Mark. “It means that our current territory is in flux, which means that other covens might be making a move on us, so our tensions are running a little high. We wouldn’t want to bring you in under those circumstances.”</p>
<p>Yuta grins, sharp as a knife and just as shining. “Too many sore teeth in that place right now. Wouldn’t want to turn Johnny’s mate into a fang-cushion.”</p>
<p>“Yuta,” Johnny warns, but Mark just feels his cheeks heat at the term ‘mate’. Perhaps his priorities are a little lopsided.</p>
<p>Taeyong sighs, beleaguered, and catches Yuta around the shoulders. “We need to get some plasma into you, Yuu-chan,” Taeyong mutters, using the arm he’s trapped Yuta with to pinch his cheeks. “You’re just asking for Johnjohn to retaliate, aren’t you?”</p>
<p>“Maybe I’d like that,” Yuta grins, but it’s much less sharp, sweeter when he directs it at Taeyong.</p>
<p>“I can retaliate just as easy as he can, you’ll remember,” Taeyong warns, and before Mark can feel like he’s intruding, Taeyong waves. “I’ll take him back to the den, don’t worry about us. Mark,” he says, his dark eyes catching Mark’s easily, “I do sincerely apologize for the trouble we’ve caused you. We will make it up to you, I promise.”</p>
<p>And strangely, Mark feels comfortable enough that he can smile at the two of them as they retreat. “It’s no trouble, really,” Mark says easily, and finds that he means it. For all that his tail frightened him even an hour before this, it’s actually comforting to know that his fear was unfounded. Or if not <em>un</em>founded, then at least founded in the wrong assumption.</p>
<p>“I really do apologize for them,” Johnny says, turning and dropping Mark’s hand to tug him along with an arm around his shoulders in the direction of Mark’s apartment.</p>
<p>Mark hums, settling himself in Johnny’s grasp. “Don’t,” he says, slipping a hand into the back far pocket of Johnny’s jeans like it’s nothing. “I get that they were just looking out for you. And you said that covens are pretty territorial, right? I guess it kind of follows that they’d be wary of anyone who took a shining to you.”</p>
<p>Johnny chuckles, leaning in to kiss Mark’s hairline again, and if he keeps the behaviour up Mark might really start to grow attached to the habit. “That’s cute.” When Mark casts a glance up at him with a question clearly written on his face, Johnny uses the thumb of the hand on Mark’s far shoulder to flick at his ear. “They weren’t worried about me, sweet thing.”</p>
<p>“What,” Mark snorts, “they were stalking me to protect <em>me</em>?”</p>
<p>Looking just a bit sheepish, Johnny shrugs. “I wasn’t kidding when I said the social mores are...easily lost after time. And I will confess that it has been...quite some time since I was this enamoured with someone.”</p>
<p>Mark flushes with a grin and leverages the hand in Johnny’s pocket to press closer to him. “Oh, ‘enamoured’ with me, are we?”</p>
<p>With startling finesse and without stopping their gentle stroll, Johnny tips Mark’s face up by the chin and drops a tender kiss to the curve of his cheek. It leaves Mark with his eyes closed in contentment as he allows Johnny to lead them. “Yes, Mark. Quite enamoured. And feeling rather lucky for it, if I’m baring my honest feelings.”</p>
<p>“Well,” Mark says, his cheek pressed against Johnny’s shoulder, “considering the circumstances, I could say I feel the same. I feel like coming across a vampire and getting out of it with my hemoglobin untouched is pretty lucky.”</p>
<p>Johnny hums. “Interesting definition of lucky. I suppose it is rather lucky that you ended up so attractive that I couldn’t bring myself to pierce such flawless skin.”</p>
<p>It rips a cackle out of Mark, and he hides his face in Johnny’s jacket. “You’re, like, an absolutely shameless flirt! How do you say that shit with a straight face!?”</p>
<p>“You make it pretty easy,” Johnny says, relaxed as anything else.</p>
<p>A thought strikes Mark after he manages to fight down his flush in order to process what Johnny has said. “So, like, wait. Should I be concerned? Like, were Yuta and Taeyong right to be keeping an eye out for me?”</p>
<p>With a quick glance around to the pedestrians around them, Johnny breaks his even stride, coming to a halt on the sidewalk and dropping his arm off Mark’s shoulder. He draws Mark by both his hands off to the side, under the awning of a nearby shop, his thumbs rubbing soothing circles into Mark’s skin. He drops one of Mark’s hands, running his fingers through his hair to look into Mark’s eyes. “I want you to know, honestly and truly, Mark, that I will not let a single thing happen to you. You could call this whole thing with me off right now, and I would still endeavour to keep you safe, because I care for you.”</p>
<p>“Okay...” Mark says slowly, touched by the sentiment but feeling frustration bubble at how easily Johnny dodged the actual question.</p>
<p>He watches discomfort and...perhaps anger, crawl across Johnny’s handsome, timeless features as they hold eye contact. “But yes. In answer to your question, being with me puts something of a target on your back. Most covens won’t stoop so low as to attack a significant other, but...I cannot promise that none will harm you.” Johnny’s hands rub over Mark’s shoulders and down his arms, perhaps soothing himself more than Mark with the gesture. “And so, I’d like to offer you a solution: allow me to have Yuta, Taeyong, and some trusted others in my coven form a security detail for you, just in case the worst should happen.”</p>
<p>Mark chews on his bottom lip, considering while maintaining eye contact with Johnny. “And if I decide this is all just a bit too much for me, I can say we’re done and you’d be fine with that?”</p>
<p>Johnny laughs, looking down at his feet, his hair hanging to shade his eyes. When he looks back up, his expression is carefully composed. “I don’t know that ‘fine’ is the word I’d use, Mark, but I would not fight you on a decision you made in your own best interest. I meant it when I said I wanted you to take the lead with us. You set the boundaries, you call the shots. I am asking so much of you to let me have you in my world, and I am uniquely qualified to endure a snail’s pace if necessary.”</p>
<p>He says it all with such genuine care and sincerity, that Mark feels his heart in his throat. Where first he asked Johnny out because of base attraction and a physical need, Mark realizes that Johnny is not here to play games. This is serious to him, and it makes Mark’s chest tingle to know that he’s elicited such dedication in an ancient creature.</p>
<p>“I mean,” Mark says, reaching out to tuck Johnny’s hair out of his eyes, “I think a snail’s pace is a bit much. Maybe, like, a cow’s pace. They can move pretty quickly, right? But they’re mostly kinda slow?”</p>
<p>A look of shock passes over Johnny’s face, before he breaks out into a sunny grin. “Sure, Mark,” he says, laughing and pulling Mark along again, “a cow’s pace it is.”</p>
<p>When Johnny reaches back down to take Mark’s hand once more, they take a more leisurely pace as they continue through the downtown core, meandering their way back to the student quarter where Mark lives.</p>
<p>Once they return to Mark’s home to find Jaemin on their front doorstep, Mark feels what luck he’d been entertaining run suddenly out. “Oh ho!” Jaemin crows, standing up and drawing his palms together in a pleased little prayer. “If it isn’t our resident lovebirds, and the impressive man in question himself! Markie-mark, you haven’t at all brought your gentleman caller around to our humble abode till now, why the delay?” He pouts hugely, draping himself dramatically against the wall beside their door. “I’ve been positively dying from the desire to be properly introduced! You aren’t ashamed of us, are you?”</p>
<p>Johnny chuckles goodnaturedly. “Hello, Jaemin.”</p>
<p>“Ah yes! Yours, mine, the world’s favourite English TA, Seo Jonathan!” Jaemin suddenly snaps to attention and cuts a deep, ninety degree bow on their front step. “Please pretend that you are not seeing me outside of class hours and I will pretend that I don’t know that you know I have an essay due tomorrow evening.”</p>
<p>There’s something in the air between the two of them, in their ease and conversation together, that Mark can’t decipher. It’s not like earlier with Taeyong and Yuta, but it carries something similar. Mark wasn’t even totally sure until this moment that Jaemin was taking one of Johnny’s classes this semester.</p>
<p>“Understood,” Johnny agrees, and the air clears.</p>
<p>Mark runs a hand through his hair. “What are you waiting outside for, Jaeminnie?”</p>
<p>“Mm,” Jaemin hums, waving his hands vaguely in the air. “Just, uh. You know, enjoying the weather.”</p>
<p>Taking in Jaemin’s pajama pants, his raggedy shirt, and the bags under his eyes, the story is fairly easily told. “Sure,” Mark says, letting Jaemin’s excuse stand untested. He turns to Johnny and squeezes his hand. “Thank you for walking me home, Johnny. I’ll message you later, okay? You told Yuta you were busy, and it looks like the same might be true for me here.”</p>
<p>“Looks like it,” Johnny whispers. Jaemin appears to take the hint, slipping inside and shutting the door behind him. Mark pretends he doesn’t know he’s just gone to stand at one of the front facing windows, the nosy bastard. “Take care, alright, Mark?” Johnny says, rather intensely, cupping his chin and swiping the edge of his thumb along Mark’s bottom lip.</p>
<p>Cheeky, Mark kisses at the pad of Johnny’s thumb. “Don’t stress about it, Johnny. If you need it for your peace of mind, then send Taeyong and Yuta around, whoever else you trust. But I think I’ll be fine.”</p>
<p>“I will worry about you every minute you’re out of my sight, I want that on the record.”</p>
<p>“Okay, well,” Mark says with what he hopes comes across as a fond roll of his eyes, “I can’t personally change how much you’re going to worry, but I’m also like. Not going to let that change my life, alright? So, protect me how you can while letting me keep that.”</p>
<p>“So pragmatic,” Johnny says, but he’s smiling, still stroking Mark’s lips with his kissed thumb. The air hangs between them; Johnny’s hands are on Mark’s chin and his lower back, Mark’s on Johnny’s chest. It’s a late autumn day, breezy and chill but not cold, and Mark knows exactly what’s coming next.</p>
<p>Johnny tilts his head down, using his hand on Mark’s back to draw him closer, and grazes the edge of his teeth on Mark’s lower lip, exposed as it is with how his mouth hangs open in expectation. Their breath mingles in the air between them for all of a half-moment before Mark’s anticipation gets ahead of him, and he kisses Johnny’s upper lip where it practically rests against his mouth.</p>
<p>And Johnny’s inhaling, deep and full, as he presses in and seals their mouths together, leveraging his hand on Mark’s chin to hold him in place. In a moment of spontaneous clarity, Mark realizes that this is their first kiss, and he melts into it a little more at the revelation, a deep, sinking feeling that he feels echoed in the way Johnny holds him tighter. He slides his hands up and around to the back of Johnny’s neck, fingers climbing greedily into the longer strands of his hair that brush the collar of his jacket, pulling back from his lips to surge back in, sucking on the luscious bottom lip that has plagued Mark’s days since his Lit seminars.</p>
<p>Mark can feel a haze of something deeper, something darker, starting to wrap itself comfortably around Mark’s mind, the idea of telling Jaemin to make himself scarce so he can invite Johnny inside and maybe upstairs making a home there quickly. But just as he starts to press in closer, he hears Johnny bite out something like a growl, before he inhales sharply like he’s been hurt and pulls away roughly. On instinct, Mark wonders if he’s done something wrong and wipes at his mouth, but Johnny’s eyes look just as blurred and blissed out before he squeezes them closed. His long, refined fingers tense to massage at the joint of his jaw.</p>
<p>“Sorry,” Mark breathes, feeling far more breathless than he might after the average first kiss.</p>
<p>Johnny shakes his head, hand covering his mouth so Mark can’t really tell what his expression might be underneath, but his eyes look as kind and soft as ever. “No, no. Nothing you need to apologize for, just...Well. I might be a little more hungry than I thought, initially.”</p>
<p>Mark nods seriously, hands fisted into balls in his pockets to keep from pitching himself forward to climb Johnny in his front yard like a tree. “Sure, yeah. I’ll, um. You know, I’ll let you go...do that. And I’ll, uh. I’ll just go inside my...my home. Right here.”</p>
<p>Neither of them moves. That is, not until Johnny drops his hand, mutters a quick “Fuck this,” and pulls Mark in by his wrist to kiss the corner of his mouth. Mark is giddy enough to giggle about it, even with the strange feeling of Johnny’s fangs slowly retracting. “I will be in touch with you, soon. I have some things I need to work out, but I will crave you every minute I’m away,” Johnny says intensely, practically into the skin of Mark’s cheek.</p>
<p>Mark flushes, with a chuckle. “Sure, dude. Send a telegram or whatever. Have your footmen deliver word to me, you big goof.”</p>
<p>Watching Johnny walk away into the autumn evening is surreal, in his tan trenchcoat and polished oxfords, and Mark does his level best not to swoon as he steps up and into his apartment.</p>
<p>“Oh, come on, don’t let him leave! I was enjoying the show, it was just getting good.”</p>
<p>Mark focuses on hanging up his jacket and scarf while schooling his blush off his cheeks before facing Jaemin. “Sorry, Nana. Not an exhibitionist like you.”</p>
<p>Jaemin quirks a little smirk. “Now, I know that’s not entirely true.”</p>
<p>“Shut up, dude. Where’s your keeper?”</p>
<p>They drift into the living room, Jaemin lifting himself over the back of the couch to curl up in the corner against the arm. “Yangie’s out with Heng and Xuxi. Said he needed some time with his boys.”</p>
<p>Mark drops himself onto the couch near enough to Jaemin, but carefully allowing him his space. “Everything alright, Jaeminnie?” he asks, giving Jaemin an opening for escape by pulling his phone out and thumbing around on it without intent. If it was something Jaemin didn’t want to talk about, he would deflect, and that would be it.</p>
<p>“We...got into it, a little bit. Again.” Jaemin stares at the blank TV, fingers knotted together around his knees, which are tucked up under his chin. “I’m not...being very good to him, lately.”</p>
<p>Mark hums a little. “Just because you’re not good to him right now doesn’t mean you’re not good <em>for</em> him, in the long run.” He puts his phone away, reaching out a hand and trying not to act too shocked over how Jaemin practically throws himself against Mark’s side, desperate for contact. He rubs his hand over Jaemin’s far shoulder. “And, you know, you realize that you’re not doing great by him, and that’s a good first step, right?”</p>
<p>Jaemin noses into Mark’s neck. “He deserves so much better than I think I can give him, Markie...”</p>
<p>“You’ve got a whole lot to offer, Nana.” He tips his head to the side to rest his cheek on Jaemin’s crown. “What’s got you so uncharacteristically deprecating? You’re the one person I can usually count on to know his worth down to the single won.”</p>
<p>There’s a brief interlude of silence, where the two of them pretend to be interested in the black glare of the television, Jaemin clearly churning away at his thoughts, and Mark content enough to let him. After some time, Jaemin wiggles in Mark’s hold, not an attempt to escape, but more an acknowledgement of discomfort. “I don’t know how to explain to Yangie what exactly Jeno is to me. He’s trying to understand, but it just isn’t working.”</p>
<p>With a nod, Mark chews on this. He’s known Jaemin and Jeno for years, a matched pair that even followed each other to post-secondary. He’s also been close enough with Yangyang since living in the international dorms together that this felt out of place. Yangyang had only ever been supportive of Jaemin’s friendship with Jeno since they got together. “Maybe this is just a quick bout of insecurity?” Mark tries, and feels Jaemin snort at his unsure tone. “Look, I’m not the guy to ask for relationship advice, you know that. But I just think that the most you can do is talk to Yang honestly, and try to prove to him that he has nothing to worry about?”</p>
<p>“I know, Markie,” Jaemin sighs, and they sit there on the couch in each other’s comfort for a while. “Thank you.”</p>
<p>“Mm,” Mark hums.</p>
<p>A beat passes.</p>
<p>“Jaemin, are you a vampire?”</p>
<p>“...What.”</p>
<p>“I just mean...your teeth...your awful sleeping habits...”</p>
<p>Jaemin uses his nearness to Mark’s softest spots, and the length and dexterity of his fingers, to tickle Mark in retaliation for his comments.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. spit you out</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Mark worries. Shadows press.</p>
<p>The dark is not so friendly now.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Mark flips the cut of meat on the grill, the subtle midday clamour in the restaurant a pleasant backing track to the sizzle of meat. “I just, I don’t know, wondered what your opinion would be.”</p>
<p>Renjun hums, scissors in his hands as he cuts up the tripe they ordered methodically. “Well, I still feel like you’re not giving me the whole story, so I really can’t give you a fully educated opinion, can I?”</p>
<p>Mark groans. Talking to his closest friend about this was the worst idea. “And I told you that it’s, like. Personal. For him. I can’t go telling his secrets just because I’m an insecure boyfriend seeking reassurance from outside the relationship.”</p>
<p>Brandishing the scissors without a care for the safety of the behaviour, Renjun levels Mark with a look. “Nope. You don’t get to turn asking me for advice into an unhealthy behaviour. Talking to me about your worries is a deeply healthy behaviour, and if this guy is already making you think—”</p>
<p>“Injun!” Mark laughs, smacking the arm <em>not</em> holding the scissors. “Trust me, this is all Lee Minhyung patented over-thinking happening over here. This hasn’t been brought on by Johnny at all.”</p>
<p>Renjun leans back in his booth seat, dropping the scissors finally and allowing Mark to reach and place some more meat on the grill. “God, sometimes I’m able to forget that we’re talking about Seo Johnny, the world’s hottest TA, the only reason half of final year seminar students keep the course.” Renjun drags a hand down his face. “Like. You’re hitting that.”</p>
<p>Mark tries not to be hyper aware of exactly how red his face goes, but it’s a losing game. “Not hitting it. Have not hit it at this point. We’ve kissed like, a grand total of three times because — as was my original concern being discussed, I think you’ll recall — he flat out refuses to have me over at his place.”</p>
<p>“And you don’t invite him over to yours, because...?”</p>
<p>“Shall I count the ways?” Mark asks, brandishing his fingers. “I can guarantee this whole hand will be used to list off Jaemin-related or adjacent factors alone.”</p>
<p>Renjun hums and snatches a leaf of lettuce to cup in his hand. “Touche.” He gestures around in the air with his chopsticks as he thinks about what piece of meat to throw in it. “Well, to answer your question—poorly, I might add, because you refuse to be open with me, your best friend, as you ought to be—maybe he’s just not ready for that.”</p>
<p>Mark allows himself to be immature with Renjun, so he throws his body back against his chair, a hand coming up to grip at his hair. “But he’s said he really likes me! How much more does he have to like me to be <em>ready</em> for that!” He gazes at the ceiling, pouting at it like that might increase the odds of Johnny opening up to him.</p>
<p>“Look,” Renjun says evenly, dragging some julienned carrots through the dish of gochujang before dropping them in his lettuce wrap. “From what I can gather about how dodgy you’ve been, it sounds like Johnny’s got some hangups. Just because he’s older than us and has a Master’s degree doesn’t mean he has his baggage all like,” and here, Renjun waves his chopsticks again, “tidy and figured out. And maybe his place is, you know, a hub of vulnerability for him? And letting you in would be opening doors he’s not ready for or something.”</p>
<p>It doesn’t really help that these are all things Mark has told himself in the quiet of his own mind, but it does help to hear it said outside of his head. And Renjun is right. Mark groans. “You’re right.”</p>
<p>“Of course I am. Carry on.”</p>
<p>Mark thinks about Taeyong and Yuta, about needing an entourage, about Johnny nearly insisting he let his...coven...keep an eye on him. “I know he’s just trying to protect me, but I really don’t feel like I need to be protected. I can handle shit, I’m a big boy!”</p>
<p>Renjun nods. “Sure you are. Can you pass me the bean sprouts, big boy?”</p>
<p>“I don’t know why I find talking to you so comforting when all you are is a smug ass,” Mark says, acquiescing to Renjun’s request.</p>
<p>“Because you never come to me needing the gentle comfort I am also capable of giving. You’re always just in your head about something that you don’t need to be in your head about, so I have no choice but to pull you out.”</p>
<p>“Alright,” Mark says, putting together his own lettuce wrap, “let’s stop beating my ego into submission, shall we?”</p>
<p>Renjun pointedly shoves his food into his mouth.</p>
<p>Mark is still unsettled by Johnny’s reluctance to open up to him, still concerned about how distant it still feels like he is, even weeks on from their initial dates, and with a few more under their belt from there even. But talking to Renjun always helps ease some of his anxieties, no matter how self-righteous he ends up being after the fact. Perhaps it's time that those tables were turned. “How about instead we talk about you and that guy from your computer engineering class, huh?”</p>
<p>Renjun coughs around swallowing, and Mark smirks.</p>
<p>They finish their lunch date at a leisurely pace, discussing Mark’s freedom from the confines of regimented post-secondary education, and Renjun’s continued indentured servitude to the monolith. </p>
<p>It’s a routine that has carried forward from Renjun’s first year when he ended up in Mark’s second year Women In Horror lecture and they sat together throughout the whole class, Renjun engaging in heated debates and educating Mark where his gaps in knowledge made him feel smaller. They’d been fast friends, meeting each other’s enthusiasm without shame, and when they’d found out they were both in the international students’ dorm, they basically lived out of each other’s pocket. Renjun had impeccable drive, and with Mark’s dedication, they helped each other ace most of their courses.</p>
<p>Friendship with Renjun had come easily, in any case.</p>
<p>The afternoon has managed to progress around discussions of awful professors and impending exams and term papers, so it doesn’t surprise Mark overmuch when Renjun checks his watch, wrap halfway to his mouth with the motion. “Shit, I actually have to go soon, though.”</p>
<p>“Nah, it’s all good, man.” Mark assures him, taking a look at the dent they’ve made in all their side dishes and the meat they’ve ordered, feeling satisfied. “I got the tab for this one.”</p>
<p>Renjun shakes his head, using the table to leverage himself up. “No way, dude. If I’m going to milk my parents for as much money as they won’t notice is missing, I will. Plus, you’re fresh out of school and still don’t have a job. This one’s on me.”</p>
<p>“Research assistant pays me some!” Mark defends himself, earning a cutting glance from his friend. Mark shuffles, pulling out his wallet. “Bullshit, you got the last, like...so many. Let me get this one.”</p>
<p>“Not a chance,” Renjun grins, already walking toward the hostess table with his jacket halfway on and his wallet in one hand. “Talk to your man candy about your insecurities! Maybe opening up in return will get him to warm up to the idea of letting you in!” he half-shouts as he leaves, and Mark just offers him a wave and a scoff.</p>
<p>Mark bundles himself up for the cold, and leaves the restaurant with a small bow to the hostess and the busperson that comes to clear their table. The day has gotten the familiar chill of coming winter, and Mark wasn’t at all braced for it when he left the house earlier that day, beyond a requisite scarf. He can hear Xuxi scolding him in his head for not bundling up properly before heading out, and commits to heading back to his place quickly before carrying on with his day.</p>
<p>He has the familiar sensation of eyes on him, but doesn’t bother turning to check who it is this time. Over the course of the past few weeks, Mark has gotten used to being monitored in some form or fashion. He’s also gotten the chance to get to know Taeyong much better, become increasingly worried and intrigued by Yuta, and has met two stand-in protectors, Ten and Taeil. Those two were interesting to meet, at the very least.</p>
<p>Last week, Mark opened the door on his way to leave for the morning, and was startled into a frantic curse by the coiled, vibrating bundle of energy that stood there, regarding him with a keen eye and a sly grin. “Hey,” said the stranger, hands adorned with many rings hanging out of the pockets on his ripped jeans by the thumbs. “Where are we headed?”</p>
<p>“Uh?” Mark said eloquently.</p>
<p>“Mm, sorry,” Ten said, holding out a hand. His ears were strung with earrings of varying shapes, metals and lengths, and caught the late autumn sun. “I’m Ten, and I am here to make sure you don’t become some other coven’s breakfast, but also to embarrass the fuck out of Johnny if you’re interested in that. So, what are your plans for the day, Markie?”</p>
<p>He took Ten out grocery shopping and to the nearby park with him, and Ten drew the curtains back a little bit on the coven’s structure and secrecy. Ten revealed that he was Johnny’s first turn, though he didn’t tell Mark when that was or how old Johnny was at the time. He explained about how nervous and anxious Johnny was at the start about taking such responsibility; “Though,” Ten mused, rings clacking together as he drummed his fingers on his jaw, “some of that nervous energy was understandable given the state his sire was in at that point...”</p>
<p>“His sire?” Mark asked, and he frowned as he watched Ten freeze. “Come on, don’t hold out on me, Ten. Johnny’s being so secretive, it’s getting kind of hard to believe he cares about me like he says he does.”</p>
<p>In a move that Mark hardly even noticed happening, Ten pinched Mark’s jaw between his fingers, eyes catching the light and illuminating all the red that was able to masquerade as brown without it, forcing Mark to stop walking and meet his gaze. With a great pounding of his heart, Mark remembered what he was walking with. </p>
<p>“Listen here, Markie. You’re very cute, and I like you, which is why I have put on this cozy, ‘best friends’ routine for you. You will not, however, catch me doing anything that could jeopardize My Lord, or his trust in me, as his first. That I can assure you.” Mark’s breathing hitched high in his chest to stick there, and Ten’s thumb stroked the bottom of Mark’s cheek. “So, listen to me well when I say this, Markie. Do not pull this fumbling lamb act on me to press for what Johnny has expressly not told you. I have used the same trick one too many times to fall victim to it, honey.”</p>
<p>Gritting his teeth in the face of precisely how human he is, Mark nodded.</p>
<p>“Thank you, sweetheart,” Ten said with a big smile, patting Mark’s face and lacing their fingers together to stroll as they had been. The whiplash was intense. Mark figured it would be reasonable that he didn’t have the same spring in his step that Ten seemed to. “And anyway,” Ten started again, smiling genuinely as though nothing before had happened, “don’t you ever doubt how John feels about you. It’s absolutely disgusting how gone for you he is, and it’s exactly that which spurs him to keep his secrets from you. It speaks to how he wants to do this right.”</p>
<p>Mark thought then of Johnny imagining the perfect scenario in which he would tell Mark what he was and what life he led in the dark of the night. Of Johnny worrying about giving Mark the right choice, and the space, and the opportunity to make every choice in their developing relationship. Still, he pouted, unable to help himself, “Okay, sure, but I feel like he knows everything about me, and I know nothing about him!”</p>
<p>Ten tugged him in by his wrist and dropped his chin on Mark’s shoulder, in the relative seclusion of the refrigerated foods section of the grocer. “Enjoy the mystery while it lasts, baby. Pretty soon you’ll be wishing you didn’t know quite so much.”</p>
<p>“What on Earth does <em>that</em> mean?”</p>
<p>“Oh, pumpkin,” Ten had cooed. “You’ll find out. Soon!” he had said, placatingly.</p>
<p>At least meeting Taeil was simple. Taeil knocked on the front door, asked to speak with Mark when Guanheng answered, and shook Mark’s hand firmly when he was roused and Guanheng had scurried back to his room. “I’m Taeil, I’m the coven’s witch. Or, well...I’m Johnny’s friend, the witch, and the coven is basically my family, but I’m not bound to them like I used to be, and anyway, it’s much nicer to help them on my own terms than anyone else’s. I’m here to set up a ward on your home, I hope you don’t mind.”</p>
<p>Mark, again, spoke with eloquence. “Wuh?”</p>
<p>“Don’t worry, Mark. I’m more than capable.”</p>
<p>“Sure...”</p>
<p>“Thanks! Do you mind if I use your stove? Some of my herbs need to be heated to be activated. Will your roommates mind? Do they have any allergies?”</p>
<p>Mark stepped aside, stunned. “I...don’t think so? And, uh. I’m lactose? Guanheng has hayfever?”</p>
<p>Taeil clapped his hands and invited himself in. “Lovely. I’ll be maybe half an hour, then I’ll be out of your hair.”</p>
<p>And he was true to his word. The rest of his security detail from Johnny was relatively hands off—either a curt nod from leaning against a streetlamp or an acknowledging wave from across the street. Mark realized that the best course of action was to go about his day, and if it was one of Johnny’s closer circle, they would make themselves known as necessary. Otherwise, their presence was a comforting weight in the back of his mind, an extension of the affection Johnny radiates with his every fibre.</p>
<p>This though. Mark can’t place what about being outside the relative safety of the barbecue place sets his blood roiling in his veins, what has it crawling in him like it’s desperate to escape in whatever way it can, but it has his hackles up to his ears. It’s a feeling he’s never experienced before, and it renders him anxious, fidgety in a way that is entirely unlike his usual incapacity to keep still.</p>
<p>It feels like a threat. It feels like danger.</p>
<p>Mark quickens his pace as he leaves the university quarter, making for his home with hurried steps. Something keeps him from checking over his shoulder, whether ill-advised or not, and by the time Mark’s arrived at the apartment, he’s almost at a run.</p>
<p>He lets himself in—slamming the door shut behind him, sliding the bolt of the lock home carefully—and rests his forehead against the solid wall beside the entryway, heaving breaths in and out, allowing himself to come down from his near panic.</p>
<p>Inside the comfort of his home, Mark suddenly feels ridiculous. He shakes himself out, from his shoulders down his arms to his hands and fingers, wiggling his hips and kicking out each leg in turn. It doesn’t ease the itch in his veins, but it serves to make him feel a little less like he’s going to crawl out of his own skull.</p>
<p>“Nana?” he calls, toeing off his shoes and slipping on his slides. “Yango? Hendery?” </p>
<p>There’s no one who answers him, so as Mark makes his way to the kitchen, he checks the schedules pinned to the refrigerator with various mismatched magnets. Yangyang and Guanheng have their Psych seminar today, which means that Jaemin is either with Yangyang for the lecture or spending time with Jeno, and Mark has the house to himself.</p>
<p>Normally, having free reign would find Mark in his room, futzing with some beats or blasting Frank Ocean into the emptiness of the house, but his earlier energy returns. It coils in his gut and centres him, like a deep, black hole has opened somewhere in the bends of his intestines and is drawing everything into it, leaving him a hollowed skin-balloon filled with only anticipation and...fear.</p>
<p>Mark assumes it’s this strange energy that allows him to see in slow motion what happens when he returns to the living room.</p>
<p>It’s autumn, so what was once—until recently—lovely midday sun has now breezed past evening and into dusk, the sun setting quickly this late in the year. The angle of the light casts the shadows from the houses across the street long, so that they shroud the meagre front walk to Mark’s home in penumbra. Mark knows this because there’s a front window looking out of the living room onto that front walk, and it is in that penumbra that Mark watches a figure launch itself with inhuman speed and strength for the glass panes of his window.</p>
<p>The figure explodes through the glass of the window pane like a bullet, and with catlike grace and fluidity of movement, it shoots out of a bracing crouch into a reaching, grasping attack with its hand aimed right at Mark’s throat. In the remaining light of day, Mark sees the tapered claws that extend from the fingers, just as Mark instinctually stumbles backward, away from danger.</p>
<p>His heart hammers, and Mark can feel himself sweating, as he fumbles around the entryway of his home for something to protect him. His socked feet slip out of his indoor shoes as he stumbles away from the front window, listening over the heaving of his own breath as the intruder scrambles after him and toward the hallway leading back to their rooms. </p>
<p>Time breaks down as blood rushes in Mark’s ears, and he turns to take one of the two entrances to the kitchen. His assailant slashes at the air he’s previously occupied with desperate fervor. Mark, in a frantic and desperate move, braces against the doorframe of the kitchen to kick out with the tightly wound force of his nervous muscles, hitting the person who’s broken into his home square in the chest.</p>
<p>It offers him only a moment before they are rising out of a startled hunch, but Mark takes it and puts more distance between them, casting about where he’s escaped through the second door to the kitchen and back into the front entryway for a weapon. Behind him, he hears the intruder sniff, then sniff again several times in succession, before they open their mouth to say, “Oh...Oh, oh, oh. The Brat Lord snatched a Bride, huh?”</p>
<p>Mark brandishes the first thing his fingers close around—an umbrella that Yangyang failed to put away weeks ago—like a bat. “I’ll fuck you up, then I’m calling the cops.”</p>
<p>“Oh, delicious darling,” the intruder simpers. “You can’t fuck me up. At least, not the way you’re thinking. But one sip of you, honey? Ah...then I’d really be fucked.”</p>
<p>Mark’s skin crawls, his hair standing on end, and he can’t stand to watch this looming figure for a moment longer, so he swings. The umbrella connects, but bends like a pipe cleaner around the intruder’s body before snapping in two. Mark barely dodges around toward the couch, away from another quick cut of the stranger’s claws for his throat. He brings up a hand on instinct to block the next strike, and hardly feels the slice of nails through his palm. He trips sideways back toward the kitchen, expecting another strike.</p>
<p>But his assailant stands in his hallway, transfixed as they look at their nails, dripping with Mark’s blood. They sniff it, inhaling intensely, and Mark watches their pupils blow wide.</p>
<p>“Yuta! Get in there!” Mark hears, his head whipping to the smashed window, and he watches as Yuta leaps in on all fours and lunges for the intruder, tackling them to the floor. The stranger is still hypnotized by Mark’s blood, and between the snarls Mark hears Yuta’s breath hitch.</p>
<p>“Shit, are you bleeding?” Like the cold night air rushing in from the window, Mark didn’t notice Taeil appear at his side.</p>
<p>“He’s bleeding?” Taeyong says from where he’s leaning in through the broken window, and Mark watches his hand fly up to cover his nose, his eyes wide as the stranger’s were just a minute ago. “Fuck, that means—”</p>
<p>From the floor, Yuta shrieks like something unholy, and he gives Mark a clear view when he rears up of the utter lack of control on his face, before Taeyong launches himself into Mark’s living room. With quick, efficient movements, he grasps Yuta and the intruder and hauls them out through the jagged window.</p>
<p>“Take off your shirt,” Taeil says, and Mark feels like his head has been shoved into a racing river.</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>“Do <em>not</em> ask me questions right now, child. I told you to get your shirt off and you will <em>do so</em>.”</p>
<p>And Mark does, bewildered. Taeil snatches the fabric out of Mark’s hand and wraps it tightly around his injured one, which had mostly stopped bleeding by that point. When Mark takes stock of his body, he feels himself trembling; not in fear, or from adrenaline, nor from the cold air rushing in through his broken front window, but as if the ground were shaking below him, and the tremors were reverberating through his whole body. “What’s happening,” he whispers, unable to even properly formulate it as a question.</p>
<p>Taeil holds Mark by the injured hand, tightly, and guides him by the arm to the door. “What’s happening is you are coming back to the den.”</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>Taeil manages to offer him a weak smile. “We’re in emergency lockdown, Mark. You’re more of a target than we were hoping.”</p>
<p>Mark quails. He doesn’t want to, but he feels himself balking at the thought, fearful of what’s next. His blood feels like it’s resonating with something, and it’s crawling like he’s flush with worms or maggots. It’s unsettling, and Mark thinks he could vomit if he let himself. “I think I need a little more detail than that.”</p>
<p>“I don’t want to overwhelm you—”</p>
<p>“I’m already overwhelmed!” Mark hisses, and he feels silly as he unlocks and opens the door, completely shirtless, when all the interlopers in his home have entered through the destroyed window. “Talk to me, Taeil!”</p>
<p>As they step out into the night, Taeil snatching a jacket from the hangers by the door and draping it around Mark’s bare shoulders, letting him do it up himself, Mark looks to the side of his building and sees a pair of feet peeking just beyond it, toes pointing toward the sky. There is scuffling, and Mark hears a bitter, feral hiss. Taeil catches Mark by the side of his face, turning his eyes away. “I don’t want to say more than I should, this is a conversation for you and Johnny,” he says, flinching only a little when Mark’s look turns sour. “But...you’re something we were hoping you weren’t.” For the first time Mark notices a slick, black sedan with blacked out windows parked on the street, to which Taeil leads him. “Your...guest tripped my ward, and luckily I wasn’t too far away, able to get Taeyong to bring Yuta with him fairly quickly. But we thought all we’d be dealing with was some upstart from another coven looking to disrupt Johnny’s hold.”</p>
<p>A snapping noise draws Mark’s attention back to the corridor beside his building, and Mark watches—after a brief moment—Taeyong dragging Yuta by his waist, the bared skin of Taeyong’s shoulder mauled and raw, but not dripping. “So, what are you dealing with, then?”</p>
<p>Taeyong meets Mark’s gaze head on, heaving one of Yuta’s arms around his shoulders and sweeping his legs up in his other arm, letting Yuta tuck his head into Taeyong’s neck, his fangs reflecting with the light from the streetlamps coming on. “You are something ancient and rare, Mark, something we haven’t seen in decades. We call you Bloodbrides. You are a most powerful asset and formidable enemy. And, unfortunately, that means that those who seek to undermine John and his rule will see you as a perfect target.”</p>
<p>The silence sits, and in it Mark feels his heart still racing and his blood still churning, and it’s all just too much. “And? <em>What</em>?” Mark tries not to shout, and manages to keep his voice to a relatively acceptable level, if maybe a bit agitated. “So I’m a perfect target, an <em>asset</em>, but I can’t do anything about it but go along with you guys until Johnny gets to sit me down and tell me, again, a shitload of things he should have disclosed in the first place?”</p>
<p>Taeyong tenses his whole body, and Yuta whines with his fangs bared from where he’s practically knocked out on Taeyong’s shoulder. “Yes, Mark,” Taeyong hisses, speaking with rapidity and vitriol, quiet enough to not draw any more undue attention to Mark’s front yard as they cross it. “For right now, situation such as it is, with the body of a rapidly decomposing vampire on the premises, a gaping hole in your window, and Yuta halfway to insane for wanting to drain you dry while <em>also </em>endeavouring to remain loyal to his Lord, yes. You will just have to go along with us. You are welcome to level your displeasure, but please, do so from the relative safety of our car, and let me call the rest of my brothers so that your roommates don’t come home expecting to find your body.”</p>
<p>By the time Taeyong is finished spitting, his own fangs are peeking out from his gums, and Mark can feel himself cowering from it. Taeil squeezes his shoulders. “Fine,” Mark concedes, quietly.</p>
<p>“Thank you,” says Taeyong, and his body relaxes visibly. He turns to Taeil. “Take him to the den, and do <em>not</em> take him anywhere near the fledglings’ wing. I don’t care if you have his hand rolled up in duct tape and twelve plastic bags, those demons will smell him and Johnny will go absolutely feral and kill me. Sequester him in Johnny’s wing, and if you have to ward it, then do it. We’ll explain to John when he gets back.”</p>
<p>Taeil nods, herding Mark to the car and finally releasing him. “Who shall I send you?”</p>
<p>Taeyong shakes his head. “Ten’s already on the way, and he’ll bring Kun with him. I think we’re technically in Joohyun’s district, I’ll call in a favour from her and get Wendy on the scene. Hongjoong’s sending Mingi, I think. We’ll get it sorted.”</p>
<p>“And...Yuta?” Mark dares to ask, the passenger side door sitting open under his hand.</p>
<p>Yuta waves a hand weakly, a bloody smile on his lips. Taeyong rests his cheek on Yuta’s. “I’ve got him. He’ll recover in short order. Now, get out of here. I don’t know if that leech was their only scout, or if they will be waiting to hear from it.”</p>
<p>Taeil nods, crouching to get into the car and behind the wheel, and Mark slips into the car himself, slamming the door on the scene before them. Peering out the rear windshield, Mark can see Ten running up on Taeyong and Yuta, his face a mask of contained fury and unbridled concern.</p>
<p>Taeil starts the car, and puts it in drive. “I’m sorry, Mark. That it had to happen like this.”</p>
<p>“Me too,” Mark confesses, quietly, watching his house disappear behind them, more silhouettes converging on his yard. “Maybe if Johnny just—”</p>
<p>“Don’t,” Taeil says, sharply. His expression is pained, though, and Mark thinks maybe he gets where Mark is coming from. “Just...Let’s save it for when Johnny gets back.”</p>
<p>Mark doesn’t even know where Johnny went.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p><a href="http://twitter.com/fynnedereve">twitter</a> ♡☆♡ <a href="http://curiouscat.me/fynnedereve">cc</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
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